Don't wait until we've destroyed ourselves and everything around us to put away
our sin.

Key Verse

"And when he was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled
himself greatly before the God of his fathers"
(II Chronicles 33:12).

Memory Verse

"But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou
seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul" (Deuteronomy 4:29).

Application

Too often Christians take liberties with the grace of God. That He will forgive
our sins when we truly repent of them is no excuse to sin at any time. Though Manasseh
did come to know the Lord, he brought down an entire people until he did. As Christians,
let us deal with our sin as soon as possible and spare those around us of the
consequences.

Spiritual Epitaph

"So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse
than the heathen, whom the LORD had destroyed before the children of Israel" (II Chronicles 33:9).

It's hard to imagine that someone as righteous as Hezekiah could turn out a son
as evil as Manasseh. The wicked monarch reigned longer than any other king in
Israel's history - 55 years. Among his transgressions (and there were many) was
Manasseh's blatant worship of idols and his practice of pagan rituals. "And he
caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom; also
he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar
spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke
him to anger" (II Chronicles 33:6). When God's patience had run out, he sent the
Assyrians to punish Jerusalem. They put a hook in Manasseh's nose and bound him in
bronze shackles and carried him off to prison in Babylon.

It was sometime in his dank and dreary cell that he came to his senses and called upon
the Lord, "and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him
again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God" (II Chronicles 33:13).

Manasseh displayed his conversion by instituting repairs to the city wall and ridding
the city of foreign gods. However, the damage to the people was too great to repair, for
Manasseh's sins were recalled years later during the righteous reighn of his grandson
Josiah: "Notwithstanding the LORD turned not from the fierceness of his great
wrath, wherewith his anger was kindles against Judah, because of all the provocations that
Manasseh had provoked him withal" (II Kings 23:26).